See that image over there? It's a Ralph Lauren ad -- obviously. One that...kinda got a bit of attention, because...well, look at it. It's 'shopped.

People noticed. And posted about it.

How did the company respond? By sending out DMCA takedown notices, because fair use doesn't exist.

It's going to work about as well as it worked for Scientology.

Now, I know I'm just an insignificant blogger tucked away in an unnoticed corner of the internet, but, if their legal types happen to find this place, I hope they pause to read this before firing off another pointless takedown notice. I've got a good idea that could save them a lot of humiliation.

The next time something like this happens -- and it's probably going to -- instead of throwing a litigious tantrum, fire the photoshopper responsible. Your company will look much better if you say, "Oops. Yeah, that's our bad. We fired the guy. And, while we're not willing to stop enhancing our models through computer manipulation, we are going to make sure that our artists have a basic grasp of human anatomy."

Yes. That's how you should respond. Not with takedown notices over fair use. Fix the problem. Attempting to cover it up with legal threats only gets people to notice, and repost.

Source. I'd post the original source, but Photoshop Disaster's ISP caved.

Okay. I only took two pictures. Here's the other one....

Then, since it was really cute, what with the eating and the cuteness.

I was kinda weighed down [backpack full of soda and pasta], and I couldn't get to the Mino, so I had to use the same camera I was taking pictures with. And I wasn't very steady.

I've been happy with the 510, but, after playing around with Gremlin's Blu for a couple of days, I wanted something like it. Research led me to the M401, and LiteCigUSA.net. I heard good things about the 401, and great things about the customer service at LiteCigUSA.

I wanted to try the Dragon, which is advertised over at the blucigforum, but I never got a reply to the email I sent. The guy over at LiteCigUSA responded very, very quickly. Also, his kits were a better value -- cheaper, with more stuff in it. I went for the hybrid kit.

One M401 battery, one M402 battery, two atomisers [one with a silver band, and one with a gold -- not sure if that's significant].

And it's in stainless steel. Which I thought was pretty. And much easier to find among all my black.

It's all very nicely packaged in this spiffy little box with a magnetic latchy thing. I'm using it to keep everything together now.

The charger is USB, and it comes with a little adapter for plugging it into a regular electrical outlet. It's funny -- I've been wanting one of those USB to wall adapters forever, and now I've got three in the house from various things.

...and I thought this was funny. If you can't see it, here's what it says:

No pollution • no flame • nonflammable • no electromagnetic radiation • no carbon monoxide • no ignition

Nice to know. Y'know, about the electromagnetic radiation.

And, if you're wondering, the manual is very, very funny.

Then there was this. This was kinda...disappointing. The reason I didn't want to order until I heard back from someone was because I wanted to see if it was possible to get blank cartridges instead of Marlboro, since I'm really not fond of even the smell of real Marlboro cigarettes. Shawn at LiteCig said it was [much like the guy at MidwestVapor], so that [along with the price and contents of the kit] kinda swayed me to purchasing from there.

It was fine, though. I emailed him again, thanking him for the fast shipping, and letting him know that everything was working out okay, and asking if there'd been a problem after all with switching the Marlboro for blanks. He replied [again, promptly] saying that he must've forgotten, and immediately sent me a tracking number. Because he was sending me blank cartridges.

They arrived yesterday. There are ten of them. Ten.

And, yes, I know that they're probably the cheapest possible item in the store -- anyone running one of these businesses probably orders them in bulk, getting them for, at most, fifty cents each. But it was just...nice. Very nice.

That's the website in the background. I figured, since it'd probably be a crappy picture anyway, I might as well make it an interestingly crappy picture.

So, LiteCigUSA. Great customer service. Good [probably great] prices. I'd shop there again -- I probably will, when the chargers come back in stock. If they had 36mg liquid, I'd really be into them, since e-smokeytreats just discontinued 36mg....

As for the 401, it's nice. I'm using it more than the 510. The batteries seem to last a bit longer, and I may be imagining it, but the flavours seem to come through a bit more. I actually like it as much as I liked the Blu.

I'm not sure what else there is to say about it, so I'll stop here.

Now, as a technical 'nonsmoker', this post might not be as useful to people who do smoke. I'll leave things like 'does this effectively replace smoking' shit to Gremlin.

This is most of my 'kit'. My 'digital smoking paraphernalia'. I use the single week Pill 'reminder' device to sort my cartridges -- I can fit nine in each slot, and each slot will be devoted to a different flavour, with one for blanks, and one for carts that need washing.

The strange [computer] mouse-shaped thing above it is the battery recharger for the 510. Next to that is one of the batteries. The shiny thing with the lights is the 'PCC' for the 510 [in silver], and, next to that, almost out of the picture, is the 510 PassThrough. It's purple because, well, black wasn't in stock.

This is the 510, broken down to its component parts. The battery [the longest], the atomiser [in the middle] and the cartridge -- or 'cart' -- with a cap on it.

The battery is manually operated, obviously. And you use it the way you use a regular cigarette -- you just have to either buy prefilled carts, or buy blank carts, and bottles of nicotine liquid [e-liquid, nicquid, it's got lots of names].

This is what mine looks like when you push the button. Bright blue LED on the end. Gremlin's got red. The red, I suppose, is to make it more realistic to the user. The blue is meant to make it less likely that others will confuse what you're smoking with a real cigarette, so they won't get all uppity at you.

This is the passthrough, freshly out of its wrappings, and unassembled. The little battery goes into the box in the line, for use away from the computer, if you have to. It's meant to be used plugged into a USB port, though, so you're not draining one of your other batteries needlessly.

The PCC [Personal Charging Case] next to the passthrough, with atomiser and cartridge attached to the passthrough. It kindasorta gives you an idea of the size, but not really, since you don't have an exact reference for either. And...I'm not going to give you one. So there.

The green light at the bottom means that the pack is done charging. The red light at the top means that the battery I have inserted in the pack [for recharging] isn't done charging.

If you can ignore the glare, this is a shot of the inside of the pack. It's got three holes for cartridges [or two for cartridges, and one for an extra atomiser], and one hole for recharging a battery.

There's a slight...issue with the PCCs for the 510. The contact that allows for recharging is made through pressure, instead of screwing it in like you'd do with the wall charger. And the manual batteries aren't quite long enough for it to work in the usual way. An easy workaround is to put the cap from one of the cartridges loosely on the end of the battery you intend to charge, and then close the pack. The added height will cause the battery to be pressed down just enough for the necessary contacts to be made.

Unfortunately, I got kinda stupid here. I forgot to unwrap the bottles of liquid before taking a picture of them -- possibly because I was just so impressed by how well wrapped they were. these are two [glass!] bottles of liquid from JohnsonCreek -- I'm a little hazy on the URL right now, so I won't be linking to them. They do pack impressively, though.

The bottles came with those medicinal caps on them -- the 'press down' type childproof caps, and a glass eyedropper, and two tiny little bottles that are meant to be used with syringes. Luckily, I just happened to have gotten some good syringes from Nuvape....

These are the tiny little bottles, which were empty, but are now full of liquid from each bottle from JC. JohnsonCreek's liquids come Some Assembly Required.

But both the almond chocolate and mint chocolate seem quite tasty. so far.

...and, wow, was that annoying. Apparently, something about WPG3 doesn't quite get along with the new version of wordpress. My post got all jumbled, and half of my images disappeared. I had to copypaste everything into word and rewrite it over there to get it into the proper order, and get all the images included....

Anyway, your basic 510 starter kit is around $50. and comes with two complete e-cigarettes [two batteries, two atomisers]. Usually, they also come with five prefilled cartridges of varying strengths. A PCC will run you about $25. Same with a passthrough. Neither is strictly necessary, but they might improve your e-smoking experience. The initial expense is well worth it, though. Once you find a flavour and nicotine level you're comfortable with, you won't need to buy regular [analogue, organic, whatever you want to call them] cigarettes again. Just about everyone I've met since starting this experiment has the same story -- bought an e-cig, quit smoking regular cigarettes the same day. Some of them don't even like regular cigarettes anymore.

Even with all this stuff, we've still saved a couple hundred dollars this month. That's...really all you need to know, isn't it? There's significant savings involved. Even over other, more approved methods of quitting.

In case the post subject needs explaining.

...okay. That's not a cat. That's actually rain happening off in the distance. But it was kinda neat.

This is Schrödinger [I think].

This is the other cat, which might be Freckles.

Both cats....

...and then there's this thing. I don't know where it came from, but it suddenly appeared and did cute things, even though it's really just this cat-shaped thing with a blurry, sort of blobby-pointy thing where its head should be. And a tongue.

Actually, that might be Freckles again, just...after watching The Ring and getting a phonecall....

But, I fixed it. By deleting my Yahoo account and re-adding it. And, while I was doing that, I loaded up regular Yahoo messenger, and found out that I, apparently, am now a 'power user'. Which means I get a little crown, ribbon or trophy next to my name. And I get to pick from a series of really silly online/offline icons. Like this:

...so, I don't know what the hell's going on. But now everyone knows that I'm online all the time.

So, I started with this....

I tried to make it cute. And, at the very least, sorta identifiable. I'm not sure I managed to do either. But I picked something easy first. And something that nobody online would noticed, because the 'net is already stuffed full of drawings of these things.

And it's obviously not finished. It hasn't even really got legs.

I really hope that I can do something else now that I've at least gotten the basics out of my head. I'll probably have to go back and finish it later.